1 “After Us the Deluge”: Health of Academic Computer Science in the 21 st Century Randy H. Katz CS Division, EECS Department University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA

2 Many Things Going on at Same Time Loss of DARPA funding as a cornerstone of support for experimental CS research, increased competition for research funding Large growth of CS faculties, expansion of graduate programs, BUT loss of industrial research labs, translates into fewer opportunities for CS Ph.D.s Precipitous decline in UG CS enrollments –Perception that CS is “so 20 th century” and “all the jobs are going to India” –Reality: at least for traditional technically focused Silicon Valley new graduate hires, jobs are difficult to find

3 Role of DoD Funding of Computer Science Research Loss of DOD based University funding 6.2 as well as 6.1 Tether: “DARPA does not fund research, but rather accelerates tech transfer to the military.” Berkeley ERL DARPA funding from $15M to $0.9M in 2 yrs! Top 10 CS Depts went from 54% DARPA funding to 24% in 5 years Data from 2003 Taulbee Survey

4 Why Was DARPA Funding Important? Strong support for experimentally-focused research teams developed over many years –Not individual investigator projects –Not large-scale centers Vision, team, approach basis of proposal selection –Not peer review, which can lead to more conservative proposals Actively managed programs –Mission/problem area focus, though capability development also important –Coerce researchers into larger-scale context than individual local projects Results speak for themselves

Years to $1B IT market from Research Start (“Tire Track Diagram”) National Research Council Computer Science & Telecommunications Board, 2003

6 New Tire Track Picture Needed! Billion Dollar Industries: –CAD Software? –Internet Search? –Security? –eCommerce? –Digital Media? –Wireless Networking? –…

7 RAID Experience Results –RAID taxonomy, 334 citeseer references (2005), top 500 CS paper –Prototype in Computer History Museum! –First network attached storage system + log structured file system (354 citeseer references in 2005, top 500 paper) –Way server storage is built today: $150 billion total industry segment –RAID gets 11.6 million hits on Google –Great Students: Anne Chervenak (ISI-Grid), Garth Gibson (CMU-Parnasis), Mendel Rosenblum (Stanford-VmWare), others … Project Structure –3 Faculty (Katz, Ousterhout, Patterson) –Plus/minus 16 Students plus Staff Engineer plus VIFs Funding Model –Initial NSF Experimental Systems Funding –Follow on large-scale DARPA HPCC Funding –Large industrial consortium (IBM, CDC, Dec, Tandem, STC, Sun, Kodak, small companies, …) –Who benefits big time? Little office supply company in MA named EMC!

8 Recent Funding Experience “Extending the Run Way” Shift to Large-scale Industrial funding model –Industry prefers funding “projects” than “centers” –Ericsson sets up a research lab in Berkeley –Plus Lucent, Nokia, Siemens, others –Recruit grad students to work on areas of joint interest –Then telecomm bust circa 2001 –Ericsson shutters lab, telecomm equipment companies pull out –Still have the students! Can’t outsource them! –Year-by-year funding from computer industry (HP, Sun, Microsoft …) –Send students for multi-summer internships (AT&T Labs, Bell Labs, HP Labs, Sun Labs, IBM Labs, …) –Good for students but bad for project focus, cohesion, ability to construct a prototype Can universities still do this moderate-scale, cutting edge, experimental, industrially relevant research? –Research done in start-ups now? –Could NEVER repeat the RAID project using this model

9 Hypotheticals What would have been the cost to the US economy if the development of these major industries been delayed by five years? What would have been the cost to the US economy if the development of these major industries had occurred elsewhere in the world? Possible methodology for understanding research return on investment?

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NSF Funding in Computer Science and Engineering (CISE)

13 Full Loaded Cost of Graduate Student at Berkeley UC out-of-state tuition rise adversely affects graduate programs with foreign students 15% rise in 3 years

14 Enrollment Picture: Fall Intro Prog Course for Majors

15 CS Graduate Applications: The Berkeley View Program remains very highly selective Foreign apps about 50% of total

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18 Discussion?

19 Steady State or Calm Before the Next Boom? Time Innovation Quotient Are we here? Or here?

20 Possible Study Themes Making the Case for Increased Computer Science Research: “The Endless Frontier Revisited” –Forwarding looking problems yet to be solved –Fighting the future: maturing field or booms to come? Understanding the ROI of Federal Investment in Computer Science Research –Quantifying the cost of missed opportunities New Funding Models for Experimental Computer Science Research –Disappearance of DoD Support –New industrial-university models